Microbiological examination of joint synovial fluid in patients with rheumatoid arthritis pre-diagnosis

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory, chronic and multisystemic disease that can cause deformities by acting mainly in the joints. It has an unknown etiology. In addition to joint involvement patological findings, rheumatoid nodules, eye complications, laboratory findings, respiratory system complications and radiological findings can be seen. In our study, we wanted to determine the role of microorganisms which may exist in synovial fluid and be effective in the etiology of RA. And also, we wanted to know whether there is a connection between septic arthritis and RA disease. For this purpose, joint synovial fluids of 139 (65 women, 74 men) patients with RA pre-diagnosis who has acute edema of the knee joint were optained by arthrosynthesis. For the microbiological examination of the samples, we prepared the blood agar, EMB (Eozin Metylen Blue) agar and Mc-Conket agar. We incubated under favorable conditions and evaluated colony morphology in cultures with reproduction, gram staining and oxidase-catalase tests. After isolating bacteria in 5 female and 7 male patients. We evaluated the data in 4 different categories including positive results-gender, bacterial species-gender, bacterial species-age groups and bacterial species-antibiotic susceptibility. And then, we performed statistical analysis. In RA patients, we found that bacteria could be isolated in synovial fluid but there was no relationship between bacteria and gender. We didn't find any significant difference between the types and number of isolated bacteria and gender-age groups. But according to other infectious agents, S.aureus appeared more. In addition, there was no significant difference between bacterial species and antibiotic susceptibility-resistance. Keywords: Microbiology, Rheumatoid Arthritis, S. aureus, Septic arthritis